My Expanding Recorder Repertoire

It's funny how easy songs are to learn on an instrument that only offers you eight notes.

HOW TO LEARN A NEW SONG ON AN INSTRUMENT IF YOU CAN'T READ SHEET MUSIC:
You carefully begin picking your notes to begin a piece, holding a long sustained breath that allows you to step up and down, seeing what's available.
Eventually, you find something that sort of sounds like what you want it to be and you string three or four notes along.
Now, you've got the beginning phrase of the song.
You add another phrase and then tie them along and now you've got a whole chorus.
Go back and play the whole thing over again, stopping and backing up when you screw up.
Run over it, a few times until the fingering is second nature to you and VOILA, you now know a new song on your instrument!
The next time you sit down with your instrument, run through the songs that you know a few times, to keep them fresh and then start tinkering with the new song.

A SUPER DISCOVERY:
Last night, at 9pm, when I could've been out in the city, playing with friends, I stumbled onto the sweeping, majestic central theme from the John William's Superman score on my recorder. You know, the one that they play with the new Superman movie and in the Christopher Reeve movies.

Yeah, well, I mastered it (it's actually pretty easy) and it's hilarious to me to hear this grand, sweeping orchestral theme reduced to this very, tiny, eight note instrument. Such a small instrument, reaching for such a large sound.

I was so delighted by my new discovery, playing it with as much passion as my tiny recorder can muster, that I called nearly a dozen people last night to share it with them. Of course, nobody was home. I got a lot of voicemails. (I left the whole thing in my friend, Corey's voicemail box. At the end of my message, I just laughed and laughed and then hung up. He knew who it was.)

The only person I actually reached was my new roommate, and old friend, Joe.

"Hey, you have to listen to this. Have you got a second?" I said.

"Sort of. I can spare a minute. What've you got?" he asked.

I played the lowest note on the recorder a few times and said, "Can you hear that all right?". The cell phone laying on the pillow beside me.

"Yeah, was that it?"

"Nope. THIS is!" and I played the Superman Theme for him. I even threw in the beginning rumble that leads into the first dynamic sweep of the piece. To get the highest notes, I LITERALLY had to play the second highest note on the recorder. The one that makes my dog run and hide in the closet. When I finished, I picked up the phone and said, "Well, what do you think of THAT?!?"

"You. Are. A Nerd." he said. And hung up on me.

I must've laughed about that for twenty minutes.

For those tracking my Recorder Progress, here is my entire Recorder Catalogue...

SONGS I'VE MASTERED:
Jingle Bells
The Superman Theme.

SONGS I ALMOST KNOW:
Ode to Joy.
Ave Maria.

SONGS I WILL WORK ON NEXT:
Bouree by Jethro Tull.
That whistling theme from Raising Arizona.
I'll be home for Christmas.
Here Comes, Santa Claus.
Freebird.


A typical recorder student, age 8.